22 Immanuel Kant Quotes on Morality

Immanuel Kant quotes on morality

4. The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

14. A metaphysics of morals is therefore indispensably necessary, not merely because of a motive to speculation- for investigating the source of the practical basic principles that lie a priori in our reason- but also because morals themselves remain subject to all sorts of corruption as long as we are without that clue and supreme norm by which to appraise them correctly...

15. I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.

16. I do not, therefore, need any penetrating acuteness to see what I have to do in order that my volition be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for whatever might come to pass in it, I ask myself only: can you also will that your maxim become a universal law?

17. Even if there never have been actions arising from such pure sources, what is at issue here is not whether this or that happened; that, instead, reason by itself and independently of all appearances commands what ought to happen; that, accordingly, actions of which the world has perhaps so far given no example, and whose very practicability might be very much doubted by one who bases everything on experience, are still inflexibly commanded by reason... because ... duty ... lies, prior to all experience, in the idea of a reason determing the will by means of apriori grounds.

18. Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to a possible giving of universal law through its maxims. An action that can coexist with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does not accord with it is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will. The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy being. The objective of an action from obligation is called duty.

31. Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

32. Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

35. There is...only a single categorical imperative and it is this: Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

36. Human freedom is realised in the adoption of humanity as an end in itself, for the one thing that no-one can be compelled to do by another is to adopt a particular end.

37. For instance, if you have by a lie hindered a man who is even now planning a murder, you are legally responsible for all the consequences. But if you have strictly adhered to the truth, public justice can find no fault with you, be the unforeseen consequence what it may. It is possible that whilst you have honestly answered Yes to the murderer's question, whether his intended victim is in the house, the latter may have gone out unobserved, and so not have come in the way of the murderer, and the deed therefore have not been done; whereas, if you lied and said he was not in the house, and he had really gone out (though unknown to you) so that the murderer met him as he went, and executed his purpose on him, then you might with justice be accused as the cause of his death. For, if you had spoken the truth as well as you knew it, perhaps the murderer while seeking for his enemy in the house might have been caught by neighbours coming up and the deed been prevented.

40. Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

41. Apart from moral conduct, all that man thinks himself able to do in order to become acceptable to God is mere superstition and religious folly.

42. Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' it is not meant, thou shalt love him first and do him good in consequence of that love, but thou shalt do good, to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fulness and consummation of the inclination to do, good.

43. By a lie a man throws away and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a man.

44. Do what is right, though the world may perish.

45. Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.

50. He who has made great moral progress ceases to pray.

54. In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

58. Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.

60. Morality is not really the doctrine of how to make ourselves happy but of how we are to be worthy of happiness.

70. The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.